If server A and B host the maps, and people join server A to play, then they may be rejected from server B since server B's nav file may vary in checksum from server A's nav file. That won't help get your map some publicity.

Run nav_generate yourself and include the nav file with the bsp file (*not pack INSIDE the bsp file, but in the same zip/rar archive). That will save everyone a lot of hassle, and plus some server owners like maps to be fully prepared and ready to play without extra assembling required.

You can add me on steam if you want to play[test] your map with our crew.

If server A and B host the maps, and people join server A to play, then they may be rejected from server B since server B's nav file may vary in checksum from server A's nav file. That won't help get your map some publicity.

Click to expand...

Im not sure, but as long as the nav isnt inside the bsp i dont think it gets checked. At least in css that didnt used to be (where i did fix the nav file for cs_office_unlimited before so hostages could walk all paths instead of just the old office paths).

But since in mvm the nav is very important its better to have one with the map itself. It just prevents the need from having to generate one at first. An mvm map can load without a nav file and when that happens it looks as if the map is broken.

And also, in some cases (especialy on later versions) nav editing might be required to fix some of the bot behaviour to ensure they can/cant walk specific paths (since sometimes nav sections are generated too large for a func_nav_avoid).

So I played this map with 2 people last night (we were bored), and while we were excited to try out a new mvm map (it's always a miracle occasion to see a new mvm map)... in 30 seconds we were disappointed already.

To be more explicit:

+ The moving platform was pretty cool, although I don't know how it would react if giants were pushed down there.

- The map was way too small. Ridiculously small. The maze-like feature was okay, but you should expand on that more and make the map bigger. It would add an interesting twist. Right now, the time to walk along the bot's paths from bomb hole to spawn is like 20 seconds.

- The bots need to come out of some tunnel or some building or some exit (like bigrock or mannworks), not from white void space. The tank also awkwardly just appeared right in front of the second spawn, rather than spawning deeper inside the spawn and slowly crawling out.

- The pop file was just... outright bad. The first wave was laughable (engineers and backscratcher pyros). The giant gauntlets got stuck in spawn and couldn't escape (only after sending rcon commands to the server console did they start budging - make them smaller, or make the ceiling taller).

You should avoid making spies part of the main wave. We had an issue where the spies just sat while disguised at the bot spawn, and the wave couldn't proceed without them being killed. Eventually they moved out of there and moved elsewhere, but it still wasted our time nonetheless.

The 100 scout wave only spawned 2 scouts every 5 seconds or so, and was extremely boring. Coupled with other wavespawns this can be an OK setup, but just a wavespawn of scouts with 2 spawning every few seconds bored everyone. We skipped that wave out of boredom.

The last wave we did with "nobody leaves the bomb hole" mode, and we destroyed the tank and the giant soldier at the last minute.

Overall the pop file is mindbogglingly easy, and while it is a good idea to make a normal mode mission (since most people only do normal mode), this was 10x easier than a valve normal mode mission. Each wave also was very short. Bear in mind, we did this with only 3 people, so with a full team this would be extremely boring. Being easy isn't a bad thing, but being boring is a bad thing.

* If you are going to keep the moving platform thing, the bomb needs to reset (which it does, so keep it that way), or else the team needs to just knock the bomb under the platform and they win. Even with that being said, it's still an "exploit" more or less, since bots always chase the bomb, and once they go in there they can't jump out.

I'v taken a break on making this map I'll get back to it tomorrow and I'v already started adding more space. Although I'm having lighting issues. Water will probably be added under the platform so bots can jump out. I'm not sure why the bots aren't moving for you I had no problem (in one version I had nav_prefers but I saw bots going in places where there were no nav_prefers so I deleted them) I'll see if nav_perfers will help. Everything will be improved hopefully tomorrow.

I'v actually had quite a few problems getting a good working pop file, see I have no one to help me test pop files so usually I can't stay alive long enough to make sure everything works. Sometimes before a wave started it would say I was half way through and only show 1 squad instead of 2 squads.

Thank you for the feedback the population stuff is especially helpful.

in your client console (or server console if you test it in a dedicated server) and you can live until the end of each wave (repeat addcond 11 at the start of every wave since it disappears on wave completion).

As for writing pop files, you can look at the valve mission pop files as a reference (in particular, the normal mode pop files like mvm_bigrock.pop, mvm_coaltown.pop, mvm_decoy.pop, etc). Open tf2_misc_dir.vpk inside the /tf/ folder, go to /scripts and then /population, and you'll see all the pop files in there. You can drag tf2_misc_dir.vpk to the vpk.exe executable (for windows; for linux it may be vpk.sh), which will extract the contents to a folder, and then you can view the individual pop files in ./scripts/population.

For testing a map, I would suggest using sv_cheats 1 to help. That's at least how I tested my map. With sv_cheats, you can use various commands to give you things, such as crits and uber. There are a few commands I would suggest

addcond 5 - gives you uber
addcond 11 - gives you crits
currency_give - gives you the amount of credit you type (example currency_give 10000)
tf_mvm_jump_to_wave_x -replace the x with the wave number you want to go to
tf_mvm_tank_kill -kills the tank
noclip- lets you fly around the map
*note* You techinically could replace addcond 5 with god. However, with god mode on, you can't rocket jump or sticky jump.

These can help you test more difficult waves. They are what I used to test my own map.